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CHARLES DI TOCCA 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 
A Trageay 

Cale Young Rice 



ALDI 




McClure, Phillips Sf Co. 

New York 

1903 



1 Hl£ LIURAHY 0F 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

APR t5 1903 

Copyright Entiy 

CLXSS OL XXc. No 

COPY B. 



COPTRIQHT, 1903, BT 

CALE YOUNG RICE 






PabliBhed, March, 1903, R 



To My Wife 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 
A Tragedy 

CHARLES DI TOCCA . . \ J^^/ of Lmcadia, Tyrant of 

( Arta, etc 

ANTONIO DI TOCCA . . His son. 

HiEMON A Greek noble. 

BARDAS His friend. 

CARDINAL JULIAN . . The Popes Legate. 

AGABUS ....... A mad monk. 

CECCO Seneschal of the Castle. 

FULVIA COLONNA . . Under the duke's protection. 

HELENA Sister to Harmon. 

GIULIA Serving Fulvia. 

PAULA Serving Helena. 

LYGIA ^ 

PHAON 

ZOE 

BASIL 

Nardo, a boy, and Diogenes, a philosopher. 

A Captain of the Guard, Soldiers, Guests, 

Attendants, etc. 

Time: Fifteenth Century. 



ACT ONE 

Scene. — The Island Leucadia. A ruined temple 
of Apollo near the town of Pharo. Broken 
columns and stones are strezvn, or stand deso- 
lately about. It is night — the moon rising. 
Antonio, wIw has been waiting impatiently^ 
seats himself on a stone. By a road near 
the ruins Fulvia enters^ cloaked. 



Antonio {turning) : Helen- 



FuLVLA : A comely name, my lord. 

Antonio : Ah, you ? 

My father's unforgetting Fulvia ? 

Fulvia : At least not Helena, whoe'er she be. 

Antonio : And did I call you so ? 

Fulvia : Unless it is 

These stones have tongue and passion. 
[3] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio : Then the night 

RecaUing dreams of dim antiquity's 
Heroic bloom worked on me. — But whence are 
Your steps, so late, alone ? 

FuLviA : From the Cardinal, 

Who has but come. 

Antonio : What comfort there ? 

FuLviA : . With doom 

The moody bolt of Rome broods over us. 

Antonio : My father will not bind his heresy ? 

FuLviA : You with him walked to-day. What 
said he ? 

Antonio : I ? 

With him to-day ? Ah, true. What may be 
done .'* 

FuLviA : He has been strange of late and silent, 
laughs. 
Seeing the Cross, but softly and almost 
As it were some sweet thing he loved. 
[4] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio {absently) : As if 

'Twere some sweet thing — he laughs — is strange 
— you say ? 
FuLviA : Stranger than is Antonio his son, 
Who but for some expectancy is vacant. 
{She makes to go.) 
Antonio : Stay, Ful via, though I am not in poise. 
Last night I dreamed of you : in vain you hovered 
To reach me from the coil of swift Charybdis. 
{A loiv cry^ Antonio starts.) 
FuLviA : A woman's voice ! 
{Looking' down the road.) 

And hasting here ! 
Antonio: Alone? 

FuLviA : No, with another ! 
Antonio : Go, then, Fulvia. 

'Tis one would speak with me. 

FuLviA : Ah ? {She goes.) 

Enter Helena frightedly with Paula. 

[5] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : Antonio ! 

Antonio : My Helena, what is it ? You are wan 
And tremble as a blossom quick with fear 
Of shattering. What is it ? Speak. 

Helena : Not true ! 
O, 'tis not true! 

Antonio : What have you chanced upon ? 

Helena : Say no to me, say no, and no again ! 

Antonio : Say no, and no ? 

Helena : Yes ; I am reeling, wrung, 

With one glance o''er the precipice of ill ! 
Say his incanted prophecies spring from 
No power thafs more than frenzied fantasy ! 

Antonio : Wlio prophesies ? Who now upon 
this isle 
More than visible and present day 
Can gather to his eye ? Tell me. 

Helena : The monk — 

Ah, chide me not ! — mad Agabus, who can 
[6] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Unsphere dark spirits from their evil airs 

And show all things of love or death, seized me 

As hither I stole to thee. AVith wild looks 

And wilder lips he vented on my ear 

Boding more wild than both. " Sappho ! " he 

cried, 
" Sappho ! Sappho ! " and probed my eyes as if 
Destiny moved dark-visaged in their deeps. 
Then tore his rags and moaned, " So young, to 

cease ! " 
Gazed then out into awful vacancy ; 
And whispered hotly, following his gaze, 
" The Shadow ! Shadow ! " 

Antonio : This is but a whim, 

A sudden gloomy surge of superstition. 
Put it from you, my Helena. 

Helena : But he 

Has often cleft the future with his ken. 
Seen through it to some lurking misery 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

And mar of love : or the dim knell of death 
Heard and revealed. 

Antonio : A witless monk who thinks 

God lives but to fulfil his prophecies ! 

Helena : You know him not. 'Tis told in 
youth he loved 
One treacherous, and in avenge made fierce 
Treaty with Hell that lends him sight of all 
Ills that arise from it to mated hearts ! 
Yet look not so, my lord ! I'll trust thine 

eyes 
That tell me love is master of all times, 
And thou of all love master ! 

Antonio : And of thee .'' 

Then will the winds return unto the night 
And flute us lover songs of happiness ! 

Helena : Nor dare upon a duller note while 
here 
We tryst beneath the moon ? 

[8] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio : My perfect Greek ! 

Athene looks again out of thy lids. 
And Venus trembles in thy every limb ! 

Helena : Not Venus, ah, not Venus ! 

Antonio : Now ; again ? 

Helena : 'Twas on this temple''s ancient gate 
she found 
Wounded Adonis dead, and to forget, 
Like Sappho leaped, 'tis said, from yonder cliflP 
Down to the waves' oblivion below. 

Antonio : And will you read such terror in a 
tale ? 

Helena : Forgive me, then. 

Antonio : Surely you are unstrung. 

And yet there is {Turns away from her.) 

Helena : Is what .'' Antonio ? 

Antonio : Nothing : I who must ebb with you 
and flow 
A little was moved. 

[9] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : Not you, not you ! I'll change 

My tears to laughter, if but fantasy 
May so unmettle you i Not moved, indeed ! 
Not moved, Antonio ? 

Antonio : Well, let us off, 

My Helena, with these numb awes that wind 
About our joy. 

Helena : Thy kiss then, for it can 

Drive all gloom out of the world ! 

Antonio •. And thine, my own, 

On Fate''s hard brow would shame it of all 
frown ! 

Helena : Yet is thine mightier, for no frown 
can be 
AVhen no more gloom's in the world I 

Antonio : But 'tis thy lips 
That lend it might. If I pressed other 

Helena : Other ! 

You should not know that any other lips 
[10] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Could e'er be pressed ; Fll have no kiss but his 
Who is all blind to every mouth but mine ! 
{Breaks from him.) 

Antonio : Oh ? — Well. 

Helena: « Oh— well ? "—Then it is well I 



go 



Antonio : Perhaps. 

Helena : " Perhaps ! " {Makes to go.) 

Antonio : Good-night. 

Helena (returning) : Antonio ? 

Antonio : Ah ! still ? 

Helena : There's gloom in the world again. 
Antonio {kissing her) : 'Tis gone ':' 

Helena : Not all, I think. 
Antonio : Two for so small a gloom .'' 

{Kisses her again.) 
Helena : So small ! 

Antonio : And still you sigh ? 

Helena : The vainest glooms 

[11] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

To-night seem ominous — as cloud-flakes flung 
Upward before the heaving of the west. 
{In fright) Oh ! 
Antonio : Helena ! 

Helena : See, see ! 'tis Agabus ! 

Enter Agabus unkempt and distracted. 
Agabus : O — lovers ! lovers ! Lord have none 
of them ! 

Antonio : Good monk 

Agabus : O — yes, yes, yes. You'd give me gold 
To pray for your two souls. {Crossing himself.) 

Not I ! Not I ! 
Know you not love is brewed of lust and fire ? 
It gnaws and burns, until the Shadow — Sir, 

{Searching about the air.) 
Have you not seen a Shadow pass ? 

Antonio : A Shadow ? 

Agabus: Silent and cold. A-times they call 
him Death : 

[12] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

rd have him for my brain — it shakes with 
fever. 

(Goes searching anxiously . 

Helena : Antonio 

Antonio : You''re calm ? 

Helena : Yes, very calm — 

Of impotence — as one who in a tomb 
Awakes and waits ? 

Antonio : He is but mad. 

Helena : But mad. 

Antonio : Yet fear you ? still ? 

{A shout is heard.) 
Helena : Who is it ? soldiers come 

From Arta ? 
Antonio : Yes. 

Helena : And by this road ! — They must 

Not see us ! 

Antonio: No. But quick, within this breach! 
(They conceal themselves in the breach. 
[13] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

The soldiers pass across the stage. The 
last, as all shout " di Tocca ! " strikes a 
column near him. It falls, and Helena 
starts forward shuddering.) 
Helena : Fallen ! Ah, fallen ! See, Antonio ! 
Antonio : What now ! 

Helena {swaying) : It is as if the earth were 
wind 
Under my feet ! 

Antonio : Are all things thus become 

Omen and dread to you ? 

Helena : O, but it is 

The pillar grieving Venus leant upon 
Ere to forget she leapt, and wrote, 

When falls this pillar tall and proud 
Let surest lovers weave their shroud. 
Antonio : Mere myth ! 

Helena : The shroud ! It coldly winds about 
us — coldly ! 

[14] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio : Should a vain hap so desperately 
move you ? 

Helena : The breath and secret soul of all this 
night 
Are burdened with foreboding ! And it seems — 

Antonio : You must not, Helena ! 

Helena : My love, my lord — 

Touch me lest I forget my natural flesh 
In this unnatural awe ! {He takes her to him.) 

Ah how thy arms 
Warm the cold moan and misery of fear 
Out of my veins ! 

Antonio : You rave, but in me stir 

Again the attraction of these dim portents. 
Nay, quiver not ! "'tis but a passing mist, 
And this that runs in us is worthless dread ! 

Helena : But ah, the shroud ! the shroud ! 

Antonio : Well weave no shroud, 

But wedding robes and wreaths and pageantry ! 
[15] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

And you shall be my Sappho — but through joys 

Such as shall legend ecstasy about 

Our knitted names when distant lovers dream. 

Helena : FU fear no more, then 

Antonio : Yet ? 

Helena : My lord, let us 

Unloose this strangling secrecy and be 
Open in love. My brother, Haemon, let 
Our hearts betrothed exchange and hope be told 
Him and thy father ! 

Antonio : This cannot be — now, 

Helena : It cannot be, and you a god ? Fll 
bow 
Before your eyes no more ! — say that it can ! 

Antonio : Not yet — not now. Hasmon"'s sus- 
picious, quick. 
And melancholy : must be won with service. 
And you are Greek, a name till yesterday 
I never knew pass in the portal to 
[16] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

My father's ear, but it came out his mouth 
Headlong and dark with curses. 

Helena : Yet of late 

He oft has smiled upon me as he passed. 

Antonio : On you — my father ? O, he only 
dreamt, 
And saw you not. 

Helena : Then have you also dreamt ! 

He looked as you, when, moonlight in my hair, 
You call me 

Antonio : Stay : Til call you so no more. 

Helena : You'll call me so no more ? 

Antonio : No more. 

Helena : Why do 

You say so — is it kind ? 

Antonio : Why ? — why ? Because 

Words were they miracles of beauty could 
As little reveal you as a taper's ray 
The lone profundity and space of night ! 
[17] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : And yet 



Antonio : And yet ? 

Helena : Til hold you not too false 

If sometimes they trip out upon your lips. 
Antonio : Or to my father's eye ? 
Helena : If he but look 

Upon me for thy sake. 

Antonio : He smiled, you say ? 

Helena : Gently, as one might in forgetting 

pain. 
Antonio : Perhaps : for some unwonted soft- 
ness seems 
Near him. But yesterday he called for song, 
Dancing and wine. 

Helena : Then tell him ! These are years 
So dyed in crime that secrecy must seem 
Yoke- mate of guilt. 

Antonio : Fear has bewitched you — shame ! 
Helena : Antonio, love's wave has cast us high . 
[18] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

I would do all lest now it turn to fate 

Under our feet and draw us out 

Antonio : 'Twill not ! 

Enter Paula. 

Paula : My lady, some one comes. 

Helena : And is the world 

Not space enough but he must needs come here ! 
If it were ? 

Antonio : Haemon ? — 'Twere perhaps not ill. 

Helena : I know not ! Broodings smoulder 
from his moods 
Feverous bitter. 

Antonio : Kindness then shall quench them. 
But now, away. Forget this dread and be you 
By day my lark, by night my nightingale. 
Not a sad bird of boding ! 

Helena : With the day 

All will be well. 

Antonio : Remember then you are 

[19] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Only a little stept from your life's shore 

Out on the infinite of love, whose air 

Is awe and mystery. 

Helena : I go, my lord. 

Think of me oft ! < 

Antonio {taking her in his arms) : My Helena ! 

(She goes with Paula. He steps aside and 

watches the approaching forms.) 

'Tis Hsemon ! 
My father ! 

Enter Charles JHendly^ with H^mon. 
Charles : So, no farther ? you'll stop here ? 

H.emon : Sir, if you gi'ant it. I 

Charles {twittingly) : Some rendezvous ? 

Who is she ? Ah, young blood and Spring and 
night ! 
H^MON : No rendezvous, my lord. 
Charles : Some lay then you 

Would muse on ? 

[20] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

H.EMON : Yes, a lay. 

Charles : And one of love ? 

The word, you see, founts easy to my lips. 
( ]Vith coiifidential aichness.) 'Tis recent in my 
thought — as you will learn. 

H.EMON : How, sir, and when ? 

Charles : O, when ? Be not surprised ! — 

Well, to the lay ! 

{He goes. 

H.EMON : Cruel ! His soldiers waste 

The bread of honesty, the hope of age ! 
Are drunken, bloody, indolent, and lust 
To tear all innocence away and robe 
Our loveliest in shame ! — Yet me, a Greek, 
He suddenly befriends ! 

Antonio {coming forward) : Hemon 

H.EMON : Ah, you ? 

Antonio : There''s room between your tone and 
courtesy. 

[21] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

H-EMON : And shall be while Fm readier to bend 
Over a beggar"'s pain than prince's fingers. 

Antonio : And yet you know me better 

Hj:mon : Than to believe 

You're not Antonio, son of Charles di Tocca ? 

Antonio : Fd be your friend. 

H^MON : So would he : and he smiles. 

Antonio : There are deep reasons for it. 

H^MON : * With him too ! 

Against a miracle, you are his heir ! 

Antonio : I think it would be well for you to 
listen. 
My confidence once curbed 

H^MON : May bite and paw ? 

Let it ! for fools are threats, and cowards. Were 
You Tamerlane and mine the skull should cap 
A bloody pyramid of enemies, 

rd ! 

Antonio : Hear me. Will you be so blind ? 
[22] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

H.EMON : To your 

Fair graces ? No, my lord — not so. Youi* sword 
And doublet are sublimely worn ! sublimely ! 
Your curls would tempt an empress"* fingers, 
and 

Antonio : Why is my anger silent ? 

H.EMON : Let it speak 

And not this subtle pride ! You would be 

friend, 
A friend to me — a friend ! — Did not your father 
Into a sick and sunless keep cast mine 
Because he was a Greek and still a Greek, 
And would not be a slave ? His cunning has 
Not whispered death about him as a pest ? 
He — he, my friend ? and you ? — And I on him 
Should lean, and flatter ? 

Antonio : Cease : though he has stains 

The times are tyrannous and men like beasts 
Find mercy preservation's enemy. 
[23] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

You"*re heated with suspicion and old wrong, 
But take my hand as pledge 

H^MON {refusing it) : That you'll be false ? 
Enter Bardas. 

Bardas : Fve sought you, Haemon. Antonio ? 
We are 
Well met then : to your doors my want was bent 
With a request. 

Antonio : Which gladly I shall hear 

And if I can will grant. 

Bardas : My haste is blunt — 

As is my tongue. 

H^MON : Then yield it us at once, 

Our mood is so. 

Bardas : Haemon, I love your sister. 

Not love : I am idolatrous before 
Her foofs least print, and cannot breathe or 

pray 
But where she's sometime been and left a heaven ! 
[24] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Hj:mon : Therefore you'll cry it maudlin at the 
streets ? 

Bardas : Necessity's not over delicate. 
Antonio, sue for me. You have been apt 
In all love's skill they say. My oath on it 
Your words once sown upon her listening 
Would not lie fruitless did they bid her yield 
More than her most. 

H.EMON : Bardas ! Do you — Does such 

Unseemliness run in your thought ? 

Bardas : Peace, Hasmon. 

Antonio, speak. 

Antonio : You're strange in this request. 

Helena, whom I've seen, would little thank 
The eyes that told her own where they should 
love. 

Bardas : I saved your life, my lord. 

Antonio : And I've besought 

Occasion oft for loaning of some chance 
[25] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Worthily to repay you. If 'tis this, 
I am distrest. I cannot plead your suit. 

Bardas : You cannot or you will not ? 

Antonio : I have said. 

Ask me for service on your foes, for gold, 
Faith or devotion, friendship you're aloof to, 
For all that will and honor well may render 
With nicety, and I'll be wings and heart. 
More — drudge to your desire. 

H.EMON : Nobly, my lord ! 

Bardas, you must atone 

Bardas ; Peace, Haemon. 

H^MON : Peace 

Is goad and gall ! Why do you burn my cheek 
With this indignity ? 

Bardas : Do you ask why ? (to Antonio.) 

A little since one of your father's guard 
Gave- his command in seal to Helena 
Upon the streets, to instantly repair 
[26] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Unto his halls — which she must henceforth honor. 
You knew it not ? 

Antonio : My father ? 

Bardas : O, well feigned. 

Be sure none will suspect he is too old 
For knightly feat like this — and that he has 
A son ! 

Antonio : To Helena ! my father ! sealed ! 

H^MON : Bardas, you bring the truth ? — And 
so, my lord, 
You stab me through another — you, my friend ? 

Antonio {to Bardas) : Do you mean that ? 

Bardas : Until this hour I held 

The race of Charles di Tocca bold, or other 
But empty of all lies in deed or speech, 
It grows — a little low ? 

Antonio : Why you are mad ! 

Are mad ! I'm naked of this thing, and hide 
No guilt behind the wonder of my face. 
[27] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

For Paradises brimming with all Beauty 
I would not lay one fancy's weight of shame 
On her you name ! 

Bardas : A pretty protest — but 

A breath too heavenly. 

Antonio : Leave sneering there ! 

You have repaid yourself — cast on me words 
Intolerable more than loss of life. 
You both shall learn this night's entangling. 
But know, between her, Helena, and shame 
I burn with flaming heart and fearless hand ! 

{Goes angrily, 

HvEMON : He can be false and wear this mien 
of truth ? 

Bardas : I'll not believe ! 

H;£MON : But, what : my sister seized ? 

Bardas : Ah, what ! — " He burns with flaming 
heart ! " — ^have we 
No flesh to understand this passion then ? 
[28] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Bound to the wings of wide ambition he 
Will choose undowered worth ? — To the ordeal 
Of mere suspicion's flaming Vd not trust 
The fairness of his name ; but doubts in me 
Are sunk with proofs. 

H.EMON : No, no ! 

Bardas : Unyielding. 

H.EMON : Proof? 

He could not. No ! he dare not ! 

Bardas : Yet the rogue 

Cecco, the duke"'s half-seneschal, half-spy, 
I passed upon the streets overmuch in wine, 
Leaning upon a tipsier jade and spouting 
With drunken mockery, 

" ' Sweet Helena ! Fair Helena ! ' Pluck me, 
wench, but the lord Antonio knows sound nuts ! 
And sly ! Why hear you now ! he gets the duke 
to seize on the maid ! The fox ! The rat ! 
Have I not heard him in his chamber these 
[29] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

thirty nights pufF her name out his window with 
as many honeyed drawls of passion as — as — as — 
June has buds ? ' Sweet Helena ! ' — la ! ' Fair 
Helena ! ' — O ! ' Dear Helena ! my rose ! my 
queen ! my sun and moon and stars ! Thy kiss 
is still at my lips, thy breast beats still on mine ! 
my Helena ! ' — Um ! Oh, 'tmust be a rare damsel, 
ril make a sluice between her purse and mine, 
wench ; do you hear ? " 

H.EMON : Well — well ? 

Bardas : No more. When I had struck him 
down. 
He swore it was unswerving all and truth. 
Hasting to warn I found Helena ta'en 
And sought you here. 

H.EMON {grasping his brows) : Ah ! 

Bardas : Helena who is 

All purity ! 

H.EMON : Ah sister, child ! — Have I 

[30] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

With strength been father and with tenderness 

A mother been to her unfolding years 

But to see now unchastest cruelty 

Pluck her white bloom to ease his idle sense 

One fragrant hour ? — If it be so, no flowers 

Should blossom ; only weeds whose withering 

Can hurt no heart ! 

Bardas : These tears should seal fierce oaths 
Against him ! 

H.EMON : And they shall ! until God wrecks 
Him in the tempest raised of his outrage ! 

Bardas : Then may I be the rock on which he 
breaks ! 
But hear ; who comes ? {Revellers are heard ap- 
proaching.) 

We must aside until 
This mirth is past. {They conceal themselves.) 
Enter revellers dressed as bacchanals and bac- 
chanteSy dancing and singing. 
[31] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Bacchus, hey ! was a god, hei-yo ! 

The vine ! a fig for the rest ! 

With locks green-crowned and hps red-warm — 

The vine ! the vine's the best ! 

He loved maids, 0-o-ay ! hei-yo ! 

The vine ! a maiden's breast ! 

He pressed the grape, and kissed the maid! — 

The cuckoo builds no nest ! 

{All go dancingy except Lydia and Phaon, 
who clasps and kisses her passionately) 

Lydia (breaking from him) : Do you think 
kisses are so cheap ? You must know mine fill 
my purse ! A pretty gallant from Naples, with 
laces and silks and jewels gave me this ring last 
year for but one. And another lover from 
Venice gave me this {a bracelet) — but he looked 
so sad when he gave it. Ah, his eyes ! Fd not 
have cared if he had given me naught. 

Phaok : Here, here, then ! {Offers jewel.) 
[32] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Lydia (putting it aside) : They say the ladies 
in Venice ride with their lovers through the streets 
all night in boats : and the very moon shines more 
passionately there. Is it true ? 

Phaon : Yes, yes. But kiss me, Lydia ! Take 
this jewel — my last. Be mine to-night, no other"'s ! 
We'll prate of Venice another time. 

Lydia : Another time we'll prate of kisses. Til 
not have the jewel. 

Phaon : Not have it ! Now youVe turning 
nun ! a soft and virgin, silly nun ! With a gray 
gown to hide these shoulders that — shall I whisper 
it.? 

Lydia : Devil ! they're not ! A nice lover called 
them round and fair last night. And I've been 
sick ! And — I — cruel ! cruel ! cruel ! (Revellers 
are heard returning.) There, they're coming. 

Phaon : Never mind, my girl. But you mustn't 
scorn a man's blood when it's afire. 
[33] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Re-enter Revellers singing 
Bacchus, hey ! was a god, hei-yo ! etc. 
(^After which all go^ except Zoe and Basil. 
ZoE : O! O ! O ! but 'tis brave ! Wine, Basil ! 
Wine, my knight, my Bacchus ! Ho ! ho ! my 
god ! you wheeze like a cross-bow. Is it years, 
my wooer, years ? — Ah ! {She sighs.) 

Basil : Sighs — sighs ! Now look for showers. 
Zoe : Basil — you were my first lover — except 
the duke Charles. Ah, did you see how that 
Helena looked when they gave her the duke's 
command ? I was like that once. (H^mon starts 
forward.) 
Basil : Fiends, nymphs, and saints ! it's come ! 
tears in your eyes ! Zoe, stop it. Would you have 
mine leak and drive me to a monastery for shelter ! 
ZoE (sings sadly and absently) : 
She lay by the river, dead, 
A broken reed in her hand — 
[34] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

A nymph whom an idle god had wed 
And led from her maidenland. 
Basil : O, had I been born a heathen ! 

ZoE : He told me, Basil, I should live, a great 
lady, at his castle. And they should kiss my 
hand and com'tesy to me. He meant but jest — 
I feared — I feared ! But — I loved him ! 

Basil : Now, my damsel — ! 

ZoE (sings) : 

The god was the great god Jove, 
Two notes would the bent reed blow, 
The one was sorrow, the other love 
Enwove with a woman's woe. 

Basil : Songs and snakes ! Give me instead 
a Dominican's funeral ! Fd as lief crawl bare- 
kneed to Rome and mouth the Pope's heel. O 
blessed Turks with their remorseless harems ! — 
Zoe! 

[35] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

ZoE (sings) : 

She lay by the river dead : 
And he at feasting forgot. 
The gods, shall they be disquieted 
,By dread of a mortal's lot? 
(She wipes her ei/es, trembles^ locks at him 
and laughs hysterically.) 
Bacchus ! my Bacchus ! with wet eyes ! Up, 
up, lad ! there's many a cup for us yet ! 

( They go, she leading and singing. 
He loved maids, 0-o-ay ! hei-yo ! 
The vine ! a maiden's breast ! etc. 
(H^MON and Bardas look at each other, then 
start after them terribly moved.) 

Curtain. 



[36] 



ACT TWO 

Scene. — An audience hall in the castle o/" Charles 
Di ToccA ; the next afternoon. The dark 
stained walls have been festooned with vines 
and flowers. On the left is the ducal throne. 
On the right sunlight through high-set win- 
dows. In the rear heavily draped doors. 
Enter Charles, who looks around and smiles 
with subtle content, then summons a servant. 

Enter servant. 
Charles : The princess Fulvia. 
Servant : She comes, sir, now. 

{Goes. 
Enter Fulvia. 

Fulvia : My lord, flowers and vines upon these 

walls 

[37] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

That seem always in dismal memory 
And mist of grief ? What means it ? 

Charles : That sprung up, 

A greedy multitude upon the fields, 
Citron -and olive were left hungry, so 
I quelled them ! 

FuLviA : Magic ever dwells in flowers 

To waft me back to childhood, (Taking some.) 

Poor pluck t buds 
If they could speak like children torn from the 
breast. 

Charles : You're full of sighs and pity then ? 

FuLviA : Yes, and — 

Of doubt. 

Charles : What so divides you ? 

Fulvia : Helena — 

This Greek — I do not understand. 

Charles : Nor guess ? 

You have not seen nor spoken to her ? 
[38] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : No. 

Chaeles : We'll have her. {Motions servant.) 
Go. Say that we wait her here, 
The lady Helena. {Servant goes. 

She's frighted — thinks 
'Tmay be her father found too deep a rest 
Within our care : yet has a hope that holds 
The tears still from her lids. I've smiled on 

her. 
Smiled, Fulvia, and she — Why do you cloud ? 
FuLviA : I would this were undone. 
Charles : Undone ? Undone ? 

You would it were ? 

Enter Helena. 

Ah, Greek ! Our Fulvia, 
Who is as heart and health about our doors. 
Has speech for you. And polities 
Untended groan for me. {He goes. 

FuLviA {looking sadly at her) : Girl — child — 
[39] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : Why do 

You call me so with struggle on your breast ? 

FuLviA : You're very fair. 

Helena : And was so free I thought 

The world brimmed up with my full happiness. 

FuLviA : But find it is a sieve to all but gi'ief ? 

Helena : Is it then grief? I have not any tears. 
Yet seem girt by an emptiness that aches, 
SuiTOunds and whispers what I dare not think 
Or, shapened, see. 

FuLviA : It stains too as a shroud 

The morrow's face ? 

Helena : You look at me — I think 
You look at me, as if ? 

FuLviA : No child. 

Helena : Why am 

I in this place ? You fear for me ? 

FuLviA : Fear? 

[40] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : Yes ! 

A dumb dread trembles from you sufferingly. 

FuLviA : It is not fear. Or — no ! — has van- 
ished quite, 
Ashamed of its too naked idleness. 

Helena {shuddei'ing) : He cannot, will not ! — 
Yet you feared ! 

FuLviA : Be calm : 

Beauty is better so. 

Helena : Ah, you are cold ! 

See a great shadow reach and wrap at me. 
Yet lend no light ! By gentleness I pray you, 
What said he ? 

FuLviA : Child . 

Helena : Child ! — Ah, a moment's dread 

Brings age on us ! — If not by gentleness. 
Then by that love that women bear to men. 
By happiness too fleeting to tread earth, 
I pray you tell the fear your heart so hides ! 

Fulvia : You are the guest of Charles di Tocca. 

[41] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : Guest ? 

Ah, guests are bidden, not commanded. — Where, 
Where can Antonio be gone. All day 
No token, quieting ! 

FuLviA : Antonio, girl .? 

Antonio ? — Is it true ? 

Re-enter Charles. 

Charles : So eager ? — Truth 

Has brewed more tears than lies. But, Fulvia, 
Why doth it mated with Antonio's name 
Wring thus your troubled hands ? 

Fulvia : My lord 

Charles : You falter ? 

No matter — now. {To Helena.) But you, my 

fair one, put 
More merriment upon your lips and lids. 
And this {giving pearls) upon the lustre of your 

throat. 
Hither our guests come soon. Be with us then, 
[42] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

And at your beauty's best. Now ; trembling so ? — 
Yet is the lily lovelier in the wind ! 

{He looks after, musingly , as she goes. 

FuLviA : My lord 

Charles : True, Fulvia — as titles go. 

FuLviA : My lord 

Charles : Twice — but Fm not two lords. 

FuLviA : To-night 

I think you are. But quench your jests. 

Charles : In tears P 

And groans ? Where borrow them ? 

Fulvia {turning away) : So let it be. 

Charles : Why do you say so be it and sigh as 
Nought could again be well ? 

Fulvia : O 

Charles : Now you frown ? 

Fulvia : The hope you nurse, then, if it prove 
a pang 

Of serpent bitterness 

[43] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Prove pang ? I then 

But for an " if" must pluck it from me ? 

FuLviA : So 

I must believe. 

Charles : Pluck it from me ! Will you — 
Now will you have me mouth and foam and thresh 
The quiet in me to a maelstrom ! This 
Is mine, this joy ; and still is mine, though I 
To keep it must bring on me bitterness 
And bleeding and — I rage ! 

FuLviA : Then shall I cease, 

And say no more ? No, you are on a flood 
Whose sinking may be rapid down to horror. 
And she — this girl ! It has been long since you 
Gave license rein upon your will, and spur. 
Do not so now. 

Charles : License ? 

FuLviA : She is all morn 

And dream and dew : make her not dark ! 
[44] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : You think — ! 

FuLviA : Wake her not, ah, not suddenly on 
terror ! 

Charles : On terror ! {Laughing.) 

FuLviA : YouVe laughed nobler. 

Charles : Fulvia, 

Friend of my unrepaying years, dream you 
I who in empire youth too soon forgot. 
Who on my brow surprise the wafted dew. 
The presages of age and death, shake not ? 

Fulvia : I knew not, but have waited oft such 
words. 

Charles : Ah what ! this hope, this leaping in 
me, this 
White dawn across my turbulence and night, 
From license ? — Hear me. I have sudden found 
A door to let in heaven on my heart. 
Had I not laughed to see your dread upon it 
Write *' license,''^ perilous had been my frown. 
[45] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : You will ? 

Charles : Yes — yes ! About her brow shall curl 
The coronet ! Her wishes shall be sceptres 
Waving a swift fulfilment to her feet ! 
Her pity shall leave ready graves unfilled, 
Her anger open earth for all who offend ! 
She shall 

FuLviA : Ah cease, infatuate man ! Will you 
Build kingdoms on the wind, and empires on 
A girPs ungiven heart ? 

Charles {slowly) : Unto such love 

As mine all things are given. 

FuLviA : All things but love. 

Charles : Stood she not as in pleading ? Yes 
— and to 
Her cheeks came hurried roses from her heart. 
And her large eyes, did they not drift to mine 
Caressing ? — yet as if in them they found 
The likeness of some visitant dear dream. 
[46] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : The likeness of some dream ? 

Chaeles : Question no more. 

She is set in the centre of my need 
As youth and fiercest passion could not set her. 
Supernally as May she has burst on 
My ban-en age. Pain, envious decay, 
And doubt that mystery wounds us with, and 

wrong. 
Flee from the gleam and whisper of her name. 

FuLviA : And if your coronet and heat avail 
Not with her as might charm of equal years 
And beauty ? 

Charles : Then — why then — why there may slip 
An avalanche of raging and despair 
Out of me ! Hope of her once taken, all 
The thwarted thunders of my want would rush 
Into the void with lightnings for revenge ! 
Enter Antonio. 

Antonio : Sir, I'm returned. 
[47] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : With lightnings that shall — {Sees 
him.) You ? 
Antonio ? My eyes had other thought. 
Open your news — but mind 'tis not of failure, 

Antonio : We seized the mui'derous robbers in 
their cove 
And o'er the cliff, as our just law commands, 
To death flung them. 

Charles : So with all traitors be it. 

Antonio : So should it. 

Charles : Well, 'twas swift. In you there is 
More than your mother's gentleness. 

Antonio : Else were 

My name di Tocca, sir, and not myself. 

Charles : You have my love. — But as you 
came met you 
The cardinal ? 

Antonio : So close he should by this 

Be at oui* gates. 

[48] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : He'll miss no welcome, and — 

Perhaps — we shall — {Smiles on them.) Give me 
that cross you wear, 

My Fulvia, It may 

Antonio : Sir, this is good ! 

We earnestly beseech of you to hear 
The Pope's embassador with yielding. 

Charles : Ah ? — 

But you, boy, draw out of this solitude 
And musing moodiness. You should think but 
On silly sighs and kisses, rhymes and trysts ! 
Must I yet teach your coldness youth ? 

{A trumpet, and sound of opening gates.) 

Draw out ! 
Antonio : I have to-day desired some words of 
this. 

Enter Cecco. 

Charles : Well, who ? 

Cecco : The Cardinal, your grace, 

[49] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Then go, 

And bid our guests. Bring too Diogenes, 
Our most amusing raveller of all 
Philosophies. Say that the duke, his brother, 
Humbly desires it ! (Cecco goes. 

FuLviA : And Helena .? 

Charles {to Antonio) : Why do 

You start, sir ? — Fulvia, we must look to 
This callow god our son. Yet, had our court 
Two eyes of loveliness to drown his heart, 
I'd think on oath 'twere done. 
{Goes to the throne.) 

Fulvia {low to Antonio) : Listen. No word 
Of Helena ! 

Charles : Now ! is it secrets ? 

Fulvia : Sir, 

He scorns to spill a drop of confidence 
On my too thirsty questions. 
[50] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Does he so 

Tightly seal up his spirits ? 

FuLviA : Put the rogue 

To prison on stale bread, my lord : I half 
Believe he's full of treasons. 

Charles {laughing) : Do you hear ! 

Because you are the son and scout our foes 

Justice is not impossible upon you ! 

The guests enter, among them. H.emon and ^a.^- 
r) A?,, following the Cardinal Julian and his 
suite, and last Helena, xohom Fulvia leads 
aside. 

Cardinal : Peace, worthy duke ! 

Charles : And more, lord Cardinal, 

We would to-day enlarge our worthiness 
With you and with gi'eat Rome. 

Cardinal : Firmly I crave 

It may be so. 

[51] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Here unto all our guests 

We then do disavow our heresies 

For faith's as air, as ease to life — and seek 
At your absolving lips release from our 
Rough disobedience. Nor shall we shun 
The lash and needed weight of penitence. 
(A murmur of approval.) 

Julian: These words, great lord, fall wise and 
soothing well. 
Who so confesses, plants beneath his foot 
A step to scale all impotence and wrong. 
Our royal Pope's conditions shall be told. 
Pledge them consenting seal and you shall be 
Briefly and fully free. (Motions his secretary.) 

Secretary {opens and reads) : " Whereas the 
duke 
Di Tocca has offended '^ 

Cardinal : Pass the offence. 

Be it oblivion's. On, the penalty. 
[52] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Secretary : " Therefore the duke di Tocca 
humbling himself 
Must pay into our vaults two hundred ducats — " 
Charles : It shall be three. 
Secretary : " And send a hundred men 

Armed ""gainst the foes that threaten Italy." 
Charles : See to it, yes, Antonio, ere a dawn. 
Secretary : " He must also yield up the prin- 
cess Fulvia 
Who"'s fled her father's house and rightful mar- 
riage."" 
Fulvia {to Julian) : You told me not of this 

— no word, my lord ! 
Cardinal : My silence as my speech is not my 

own. 
Charles : We'll more of it — a measure more. 

Read on. 
Secretary : " And for the better amity and 
weal 

[53] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Of Italy and Christ's most Holy Church, 
He is enjoined to wed with Beatrice 
Of Florence. If his wilful boldness grants 
Obedience, his sins shall melt to rest 
Under the calm of full forgiveness. He — 



Charles : A mild, a courteous, O a modest 
Pope ! 
I must tear from my happiness a friend 
Who fled a father's searing cruelty. 
And cast her back in the flames ! And I must bind 
My crippled years that fare toward the grave 
In the cold clasp of an unloving hand ! 
No ! No ! 

Then, sir, and Cardinal, 'tis not enough ! 
I pray you swift again to Rome and plead 
Most suppliantly that I for penance may 
Swear my true son is shame-begot, or lend 
My kin to drink clean of its fouling damp 
Some pestilent prison ! And 'tis impious too 
[54] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

That any still should trust my love. Beseech 
His Holiness' command for death upon them ! 
Cardinal : This is your answer ? 
Charles (rises) : A mite ! a mite of it ! 

The rest is I will wed where I will wed 
Though every hill of earth raise up its pope 
To bellow at me thunderous damnation ! 
I will — I will — (Falls back convulsed.) 

FuLviA (hastening to him) : Charles, ah ! Wine 

for him, wine ! (It is brought.) 
Antonio : Lord Cardinal, spare yom'self more 
and go. 
You shall learn if a change may loose this strain. 
(The Cardinal goes with his suite amid 
timid reverence.) 
Charles (struggling) : I will — this frenzy — off' 
my throat — ! I — (Recovering.) Ah, 
Thou, Fulvia ? 'Twas as a fiend swung on me. 
And shame ! fear oozes out upon my brow, 
[55] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

And I . {Rises and calms himself.) Forgive, 

friends, this so sudden wrench 
Upon your pleasure. One too quick made saint, 
Stands feebly : but at once will I atone. 
Where is Diogenes — where is he ? His 
Tangled fantastic wisdom shall divert us. 

(Diogenes, who has stood unconscious of all 
that has passed, is pushed Jvrward.) 
Ah, peer of Socrates and perfect Plato, 
Leave your unseeing silence now and tell us 

Enter Agabus gazing anxioiisly and wildly before 

him. 
Who's this ? 

Agabus {hoarsely) : Where went he — the Shadow ? 

— whither ? 

Charles : Who's this brol<e from his grave upon 

us? 

Agabus {searching still) : Where ? 

I followed him — he sped and there was cold ! 

[56] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Behind him blows a horror ! 

(Stops in fascinated awe before Helena,) 
Ah, on her head ! 
His touch ! his earthless finger ! — and she rots 
To dust ! to dust ! 

Antonio : 111 monk ! are there no men 

That you must wring a woman so with fear ? 
Agabus : Ha, men ? Christ save all men but 

lovers! all! {Crosses himself ) 
Charles : Antonio, how speaks he ? 
Antonio : Sir, most mad 

With the pestilence of evil prophecy. 
{To guards.) Forth with him ! 

Charles : Stay. 

Antonio : Let him not, for he will 

Beguile you to some ravening belief. 

Agabus {going up to Charles, staring at him 
in suppressed excitement) : A lover ! a 
lover ! and he loves in vain ! 
[57] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Wilt go ? There is a cave — (taking his hand)^ 
we""!! curse her — come ! 
Charles : Out ! out ! ( Throivs him from the 

dais.) 
Agabus : Christ save all men but — (Seeking 
vacantia/.) Ah, the Shadow ! 
Has no one seen him ? none ? — the Shadow ? 
none ? 

(Goes dazed. Guests whisper, awed. 

Charles : He is obsessed — vile utterly ! 

A Guest : O duke, 

I pray, good-night. 

Another : And I, my lord. 

Another : And I 

Another : And 

Charles : Friends, you shall not — no. This 
pall will pass, 
My hospitality is up, you shall not ! 

Another : Pardon, O duke, we 

[58] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Though some grudging wind 

Blows us away from mirth, 'tis still in view, 
We've lute and dance that yet shall bring us in. 

1st Lady : O, dance ! 

Charles : Cecco, our Circes from the Nile. 

(Cecco goes. 

2d Lady : The Nile ! Ah, Cleopatra's Nile ? 

Charles : Her own ; 

And sinuous as Nile water is their grace. 

Enter two Egyptian girlsy ivho dance, then go. 

Guests (applauding) : Bravely ! — O, brave ! 

Charles : Do they not whirl it lithe ? 

With limbs like swallow wings upon the blue ? 

1st Lady : 'Twas witchery ! 

3d Lady : Such eyes ! such hair ! 

2d Lady : And thus, 

Did Cleopatra thus steal Antony ? 
Wrap him about with motion that would seize 
[59] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

His senses to an ecstasy ? O, oh, 
To dance so ! 

Charles : And so steal an Antony ? 
We'll frame a law on thieving of men's heart's ! 
2d Ladv : Then, vainlv ! 'tis a theft men like 

the most. 
Charles : When in its stead the thief has left 
her own — 
But shall we woo no boon of mirth save 

dance ? 
A lute ! a lute ! {Ons is gone for.) Some new lay, 

Haemon, come! 
And every word must dip its syllables 
In Pindar's spring to trip so lightly forth. 
H.EMON : I have no lay. 
Charles : The lute ! {It is offered H.emon.) 

Sing us of love 
That builds a Paradise of kisses, thinks 
The Infinite bound up in an embrace. 
[60] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Whose sighs seem to it hurricanes of pain, 
Whose tears as seas of molten misery. 

H.EMON : I have none — cannot. 

Charles : Now will you fright off 

Again our timid cheer ? 

H.EMON : AVhile she, my sister — ! 

{The lute is offered again.) 
I cannot, will not ! 

Charles : Will not ? will not ? Look ! 
I had an honor pluckt to laurel it, 
A wreath of noble worth, a thing to tell 

H.EMON : Honor upon dishonor sits not well. 

Charles {not hearing) : Heat me not with de- 
nial. Is new bliss 
Raised from the dead in me but to fall back 
As stone ere it has breathed ? Have I so frequent 
Drained you ? Be slow to tempt me — In me 

moves 
Peril that has a passion to leap forth ! 
[61] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

H^MON : Antonio, speak ! Where's innocence 
and where 
Begins deceit ? 

FuLviA (to H.EMON aside): Ask it not, or you step 
On waiting hazard and calamity. 

Charles : New fret ? and new confusion ? In 
the bhnd 
Power and passing of this night is there 
Conspiracy ? — plot of some here ? or of 
That One whose necromancy wields the world ? 
I care not! — I care not! We must have mirth! 
Have mirth! though it be laughter at damned 
souls. 
H.EMON : And I must wake it ? I with laugh 
and lay, 
Doting upon dishonor ? 

Charles : What means he ? 

H.EMON : Give me again my sister from these 
walls, 

[62] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Since might is yours, strip from me wealth and life 
And more, and all — but let her not, no, no. 
Meet here the touch and leprosy of shame ! 

Charles {Imighing) : Said I not, said T, friends, 
we should have mirth ? 
You shall laugh with me laughter bright as wine. 
Antonio : But, sir, this is not good for laugh- 
ter! Sir! 
H.EMON (to Antonio) : Ah, put the lamb on — 

bleat mock sympathy ! 
Charles (still laughing) : Fulvia, O, he foots it 
in the tracks 
Of your own fear ! and wanders to delusion I 
H.EMON : Will you laugh at me, fiend ! 
Charles : Boy ! 

H.EMON : Had I but 

Omnipotence a moment and could dash 
Annihilation on you and your race ! 

(Throws his glove in Antonio's yac^.) 
[63] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : Haemon ! 
FuLviA {restraining her) : No, Helena. 
Charles : Omnipotence ? 

And could Omnipotence make such a fool ? 
There must be two Gods in the world to do it. 

HiEMON : She shall not ! 

(Attempts to kill Helena.) 
Antonio (preventing) : Fury ! — Ah ! what would 

you do ? 
Charles : Such things can be ? A sister, yet 

he strikes ? (H.emon is seized.) 
Helena : O let me speak with him, sir, let me 

speak ! 
Charles : Not now, girl, no, not now — lest in 
his breath 
Be venom for thee! (To soldiers.) Shut him 

from our gates 
Till he repent this fever. 

(H.EMON goes quietly out.) 
[6^] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

{To gtiests xvho are suspicimis and tinde- 
termined.) If you stare so 
Will the skies stop ! Have I not arm in arm 
Friended this youth and meant him honor still ? 
Leave me. I had a thing to tell ; but it 
Must wait more seasonable festivity. 
{To Paula.) See to thy mistress, child. Anto- 
nio, stay. 

{All go but Antonio and Charles, who 
leaves his chair slowly and xvith dejection.) 

Antonio : Father 

Charles {unheeding) : Did I not humble me? 

Antonio : Father ? 

Charles : Or ask more than a brevity of joy 
To bud on my life's withering close ? 

Antonio : But, sir ! 

Charles : If it bud not ! 

Antonio : What thought impels and wrings 
These angers from your eyes .'* 
[65] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles {dozoly^ gazing at him) : You"'re like 
your mother. 

Antonio : In trouble for your peace, more than 
in feature. 

Charles : Peace — peace ? Antonio, a dream 
has come : 
To stir — to wake — to learn it is a dream — • 
I must not, will not look on such abyss. 
You love me, boy? 

Antonio : Sir, well : you cannot doubt it. 

Charles : There has been darkness in me — 
and it seems 
Such night as would put out a heaven of hope, 
Quench an eternity of flaming joy ! 
I have sunk down under the world and hit 
On nethermost despair : flown blind across 
An infinite unrest! 

Antonio : Forget it, now. 

[66] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Had I drunk Lethe's all 'twould 
not have stilled 
The crying of my desolation's want. 
Within me tenderness to iron turned, 
Gladness to worm and gloom. — But 'tis o'erpast. 
A rift, a smile, a breath has come — blown me 
From torture to an ecstasy. 

Antonio : To ? 

Charles : Ecstasy ! 

Such as surrounds Hyperion on his sun, 
Or Pleiads sweeping seven-fold the night. 

Antonio : And you — this breath ? 

Charles : Is — you are pale ! 

And press your lips from trembling ! 

Antonio : No — yes — well — 

This ecstasy ? 

Charles : Is love ! is love that — How ? 
You feign ! distress and groaning tear in you ! 

Antonio : No. She you love 

[67] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : O, Eve new-burst on Eden, 

All pure with the prime beauty of God's breath, 
Was not so ! 

Antonio : She is Helena ? — the Greek ? 

Charles : She — Still you do not ail ? — Yes, 
Helena, 
Who — But you are not well and cannot share 
This ravishment ! — I will not ask it — now. 
This ravishment ! — Ah, she has stayed the tread 
And stilled the whispering of death : has called 
Echoes of youth fi'om me ! and all I feared. . . , 
I think — you are not well. Shall we go in ? 

Curtain. 



[68] 



ACT THREE 

Scene. — The gardens of the castle. Paths meet 
under a large lime in the centre^ where seats 
are placed. The wall of the garden crosses 
the reary and has a postern. It is night of 
the same day^ and behind a convent on a near 
hill the moon is rising. A nightingale sings. 

Enter Giulia, Cecco, and Naldo. 
GiULiA : That bird ! Always so noisy, always 
vain 
Of gushing. Sing, and sing, sing, sing, it must ! 
As if nobody else would speak or sleep. 

Cecco : Let the bird be, my jaunty. 'Tis no lie 
The shrew and nightingale were never friends. 
Giulia : No more were shrew and serpent. 
Cecco : Well what would 

You scratch from me ? 

[69] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

GiULiA : If there is anything 

To be got from you, then it must be scratched. 

Cecco : Yet shrews do not scratch serpents. 

GiuLiA : If they're caught 

Where they can neither coil nor strike ? 

Cecco : Well, / 

Begin to coil. 

GiuLiA : And I'll begin to scotch 

You ere 'tis done. — Give me the postern key. 

Cecco : Your lady's voice — but you are not 
your lady. 

GiuLiA : And were I you not long would be 
your lord's. 
Give me the key. 

Cecco : I coil — I coil ! will soon 

Be ready for a strike, my tender shrew. 

GiULiA : Does the duke know you've hidden 
from his ear 

[70] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio's passion ? does he ? — ah ? — and shall 
I tell him ? ah ? 

Cecco : You heard then 

GiuLiA : He likes well 

What's kept so thriftily. 

Cecco (scowling) : You want the key 

To let in Boro to chuck your baby face 
And moon with you! He's been discharged — 
take care. 
GiULiA : The duke might learn, too, you're not 
clear between 
His ducats and your own. 

Cecco : There then (gives Jcey)^ but 

GiuLiA (as he goes) : Oh ? 

And shrews do not scratch serpents ? You may spy, 
But others are not witless, I can tell you ! 

(Cecco goes. 
Now, Naldo (gives him key and writing)^ do not 
lose the writing. But 
[71] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Should you, he must not come till two. For 'tis 
At twelve the Greek will meet Antonio. 

(Naldo goes, through the postern: Giulia 
to the castle. 

Enter Helena and V wji^a. from another part of 
the gardens. 

Helena : At twelve, said he, at twelve, beside 

the arbor ? 
Paula : Yes, mistress. 

Helena : I were patient if the moon 

Would slip less sadly up. She is so pale — 
With longing for Endymion her lover. 

Paula : Has she a lover? Oh, how strange. 
Is it 
So sweet to love, my lady ? I have heard 
Men die and women for it weep themselves 
Into the grave — yet gladly. 

Helena : Sweet ? Ah, yes, 

[72] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

To terror ! for the edge of fate cares not 
How quick it severs. 

Paula : On my simple hills 

They told of one who slew herself on her 
Dead lover's breast. Would you do so ? 
Would you, my lady ? 

Helena : There's no twain in love. 

My heart is in my lord Antonio's 
To beat, Paula, or cease with it. 

Paula : But died 

He far away ? 

Helena : Far sunders flesh not souls. 
Across all lands the hush of death on him 
Would sound to me ; and, did he live, denial. 
Though every voice and silence spoke it, could 
Not reach my rest ! — But he is near. 

Paula : O no, 

Not yet, my lady. 

Helena : Then some weariness 

[73] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Has pluckt the minutes' wings and they have 
crept. 
Paula : But 'tis not twelve, else would we hear 
the band 
Of holy Basil from their convent peace 
Dreamily chant. 

Helena : Nay, hearts may hear beyond 

The hark of ears ! Listen ! to me his step 
Thrills thro' the earth. 

(Antonio approaches and enters the postern.) 
'Tis he ! Go Paula, go : 
But sleep not. 

(Paula hastens out.) 
{Going to him.) My Antonio, I breathe. 
Now no betiding fell athwart thy path 
To stay thee from me ! 

Antonio : Stronger than all betiding 

This hour has reached and drawn me yearning to 
thee! (TaJces her in his arms.) 
[74] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : And may all hours ! 

Antonio : All ! the"' we two will still 

Be more than destiny — which cannot grasp 
Beyond the grave. 

Helena : 'Tis sadly put, my lord. 

Antonio : Ah, sadly, loathly ; but, my Helena^ 

Helena : I would not sink from it, the simple 
sun — 
Fade to a tomb ! What dirging hast thou heard 
To mind thee of it ? 

Antonio : Love is a bliss too bright 
To rest on earth. With it God should give us 
Ever to soar above mortality. 
But you must know ! 

Helena : Not yet, tell me not yet ! 

Dimly I see the burden in your eyes, 
But dare not take it yet into my own. 
Let us a little look upon the moon, 
Forgetting. {They seat themselves.) 
[75] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio (rnusingly) : These hands — this hair — 
{Caressing them.) 

Helena : Like a farewell 

Your touch falls on them. 

Antonio (moved) : To a father yield them ? 

Helena : Antonio ? 

Antonio {still caressing) : No, no ! It cannot be ! 

Helena : This di*ead — and shi'inking — let me 
have it ! — speak ! 
You mean — look on me ! — mean, your father ? — 

Antonio : Ah ! 

It must not ! must not! 

Helena : Do you mean — he — No ! 

Let him not touch me even in thy thought, 
To me come nearer than a father may ! 

Antonio : He"'s swept by the sweet contagion 
of you, wrapt 
In a fierce spell by your effulgent youth. 
[76] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : Say, say it not! To him I but 
smiled up — 
But smiled ! 

Antonio : He knew not that such smiles could 
dawn 
In a bare world. And now is flame ; would 

take 
Your tenderness into his arms and hear 
Seized to him the warm music of your heart. 
O, I could be for him — he is my father — 
Prometheus stormed and gnawed on Caucasus, 
Tantalus ever near the slipping wave. 
Or torn and tossed to burning martyrdom — 
But not — not this ! 

Helena : Then, flight ! In it we may 

Find haven and new nurture for our bliss. 

Antonio : Snap from his hunger this one hope, 
so he 

[77] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Must starve ? Push him who has but learned 

there's light 
Back into yawning blindness ? Ah, not flight ! 

Helena : I know he is your father, and my days 
Have been all fatherless, tho"" I have made 
Me child to every wind that had caress 
And to each lonely tree of the deep wood — 
Oft envious of those who touch gray hairs, 
Or spend desire on filial grief and pang. 
And most have you a softness in him kept, 
Been to him more than empire's tyranny — 
But baffled none can measure him nor trust ! 

Antonio : Yet must we wait. 

Helena : When waiting shall but goad 

The speed of peril ? 

Antonio : Still : and strain to win 

Him from this brink. — If vainly, then birth, pity, 
And memory shall fall from me ! — all, all. 
But fierceness for thy peace ! 
[78] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Helena : My Antony ! 

Antonio : And fierceness without faltei* ! 

Helena : I am thine, 

Thine more than immortality is God's ! 
Hear, does the nightingale not tell it thee ? 
The stars do they not tremble it, the moon 
Murmur it argently into thine eyes ? 

Antonio: Ah, sorceress ! You need but breathe 
to put 
Abysm from us ; but build words to float us 
On infinite ecstasy. {Kisses her.) 

Helena : How, how thy kisses 

Sing in me ! 

Antonio : From my heart they do but send 
Echoes born of thy beauty mid its strings ! 

Helena : Then would I lean forever at thy lips, 
Lose no reverberance, no ring, no waft, 
Hear nothing everlastingly but them ! 

(A mouniftd chant is home from the Con- 
vent. They slowly unclasps awed.) 

[79] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio : Weary with vigil does it swell and 
sink, 
Moaning the dead. 

Helena : Ah, no ! There are no dead 

To-night in all the world. Could God see 

them 
Lie cold and wondrous still, while we are rich 
In warmth and throb ! 

Antonio : Yet, hear. The funeral tread 

Of the old sea sighs in each strain, and breaks. 
Helena : As I were drowned and heard it over 
me. 
It Cometh — cometh ! 

{Her head droops back on his arm. A 
pause.) 
Antonio {touching her face) : Cold ! cold ! — 
your lips — your brow ! 
And you are pale as with a prophecy ! 
Helena : Oh — oh ! 

[80] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio : Your spirit is not in you but 

Afar and suffering ! 

Helena : A vision sweeps me. 

Antonio : Awake from it ! 
Helena (recovering) : A waste of waves that 
beat 
Upon a cliff — and beat ! Yet thou and I 
Had place in it. 

Antonio : Come to yon arbour, come. 

The moon has looked too long on the sad earth, 
And can reflect but sorrow. 

Helena : Ah, I fear ! 

{The?/ go clinging passionately together. 
Enter Charles and Cecco. 
Charles : And yet it is a little thing to sleep — 
Just to lie down and sleep. A child may do it. 
Cecco : If my lord would, here's sleep for him 
wrapped in 
A quiet powder. 

[81] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Sleep is ever mate 

Of peace and should go with it. I have slept 
In the wild arms of battle when the winds 
Of souls departing fearfully shook by, 
And on the breast of dizzy danger cradled 
Softly been lulled. Potions should be for them 
Who wi-estle and are thrown by misery. 

Cecco : And is my lord at peace? 

Charles : Strangely. — Yet seem 

For sleep too coldly calm. 

Cecco : So were you, sir — 

I keep your words lest you may need of them — 
On the same night young Hasmon's father went 
The secret way to death. 

Charles : Of that ! — of that ? — 

Cecco : Pardon, I but 

Charles : Smirker ! — Yet, was it so ? 

That night indeed ? 

Cecco : Sir, surely. 

[82] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Chaeles : And the moon"'s 

'Scutcheon hung stainless up the purple east ? 

Cecco : Half, sir ; even as now. 

Charles {as to himself) : Since that hour''s close 
To this I have not stood in so much calm. 
Still was he not in every vein of him, 
And breath, a traitor .'' A Greek who — I'll not 

say it, 
Since she is Greek I must forget the word 
Sounds the diapason of perfidy. 

Cecco : My lord thinks of the gentle Helena .'' 

Charles : And if I do ? 

Cecco : Why, sir 

Charles : Well ? 

Cecco : Nothing : but 



Charles : Subtle ! your nothing harborcth 
some theft 
Of spial. 

Cecco : Sir, I — no — that is 

[83] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : That is 

It does ! Must I — persuade it from your throat ? 
{Makes to choTte htm.) 

Cecco : It was of lord Antonio 

Charles : Speak then. 

Cecco : Have you not marked him sundry of 

his moods ? 
Charles : Well ? 

Cecco : On his back in the wood as if the 
leaves 
Sung fairy balladry ; then riding wild 
Nowhither and alone ; about the castle 
Yearning, yet absent to soft speech and arms ! 
Hell drink, sir, and not know if it be wine ! 
Charles : So is he ! but to-day he bold un- 
sheathed 
His skill and bravery. 

Cecco : And did not crave 

A boon of you ? 

[84] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : None, But you put not ill 
My thought to it. His aspiration flags 

Cfxco : Ah, flags. 

Charles : New wings it needs and buoyancy. 
My trust in him is i-ipe : the fruit of it, 
He shall be lord of Arta — total lord. 

Cecco : He begged no softer boon ? 

Charles : Cunning ! again ? 

Sleek questions of a sleeker consequence ? 

Cecco : It was, sir, only of Antonio. 

Charles : Worm, you began so. Stretch now 
to the end, 
Or — will you ? 

Cecco : I would say — would ask — and hope 
There is no thorny hint in it to vex you, 
To prick your humor — may not he be sick. 
Amorous, mellow sick upon some maid ? 

Charles : Have you so labored to this atom's 
birth ? 

[85] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Is a boy''s passion so new under the moon 
You gape at it ? 

Cecco : But if, sir 

Charles : I had thought 

Would start up in your words some Titan woe, 
No human catapult could war upon ! 
Some dread colossal doom, frenzied to fall ! 
Were it he's traitor gnawing at my throne. 
Or ready with some potent cruelty 
To blight this tenderness new-sprung in me — 
I would — even have listened ! 

{Noise is heard at the postern. It is un- 
locked. H.EMON enters, and stops in 
consternation.) . 

Charles : Keys ? To — this ? 

H^MON : 1 — have excuse. 

Charles : Perchance also you have 

Them to my gems and secrecies ? Shall I 
Not show their hiding ? — rubies, and fair gold ? 
[86] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

H.«MON : Mistake me not, my lord. 

Charles : I could not : you 

Have come at midnight — a most honest hour. 
Enter this postern — a most honest way, 
And seem most honest — Why, I could not, sir ! 

HiEMON : You wi'ong me, and have wronged 
me. I but come 
To loose my sister. 

Charles : As to-day you would 

Have loosed her with a piercing — into death ? 

H.EMON : Rather, could I ! Antonio — yet neither. 
Since you, not he, are here, my passion melts 
Into a plea. Humbly as manhood may — 

Charles : This fever still ? 

HiEMON : This fever ! Must I be 

As ice while soiling flames leap out at her ? 
And passionless — as one cold in a trance ? 
Rigid while she in stealth is drugged to shame ? 
Be voiceless and be vain, unstung, and still.? 
[87] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

I must wait softly while her innocence 
Is drained as virgin freshness from the morn ? — 
Though he were twice Antonio and yom- son, 
An emperor and a god, I would not ! 

Charles : Ever, 

And ever bent upon Antonio ? 
Be not a torrent, boy, of rush and foam. 
Be not, of roar ! — Yet — look : Antonio ? 
You said Antonio ? 

H^MON : Yes. 

Charles {troubled) : You did ill 

To say it ! He's my son. 

HyEMON : I care not. 

Charles : Have 

You cause — a ground — some reason ? Men should 

when 
Suspicions curve their lips. 

H.EMON : Cause ! reason ! 

Charles : No : 

[88] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

He is my son. His flesh has memories 
That would cry out and curdle him to madness, 
Palsy and strangle every pregnant wish, 
Or bring in him compassion like a flood. 

H^MON {contemphious) : O ? 

Charles : Never ! — Yet, a lurking at my brain ! 
Enter Paula, hurriedly. 

Paula : My lord Antonio ! my lady ! {Seeing 
Charles.) O ! 

Charles {strangely) : Come here. 

Paula : O, sir ! 

Charles {taking her wrist) : Were you not in a 
haste ? 

Paula : I — I — I do not know. 

Charles : Girl ! — Why do you 

Drop fearful to your knees ? 

Paula : 'Tis late, sir, late, 

Let me go in ! 

Charles : You have a mistress who 

[89] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Keeps quick temptation in her eyes and hair. 
A shy mole too lies pillowed on her cheek — 
Does she rest well ? 

Paula : My lord 

Charles : Ah, you would say 

She sometimes walks asleep : and you have come 
To fetch her ? 

Paula : Loose me, sir ! 

Charles : Or she has left 

Her kerchief in some nook : you seek it ? 

Paula : O, 

Your eyes ! your eyes ! 

Charles : I have a son : are his 

Not like them ? 

Paula : My wrist, sir ! 

Charles : It was night, then — night ? 

You could not see him clearly ? 

Paula : Mercy ! 

Charles {looking about) : Yet 

[90] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Perchance he too walks in his sleep. Were it 
Quite well if they have met — these two that walk ? 

Paula : My lady, my sweet lady ! 

Charles (releasing her) : Go, for she 

Still wonderful may lie upon her couch. 
One arm dropt whitely. If you prayed for her— 
If you should pray for her — Something may chance : 
There is so much may chance — we cannot know ! 

(Paula goes. 
{Disturbed.) This child who hath but dwelt about 

her, touched 
And coiled the mystery of her hair, has might 
Almost too much ! 

HiEMON : You cloud me with these words. 
Were they Antonio''s 

Charles : If I but think 

" Helena " must you link " Antonio " to it ! 
Can they not be, yet be apart ? Will winds 
Not bear them, and not sound them separate ! 
[91] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

If angels cry one at the stars will they 
But echo back the other ? — This is froth — ■ 
The froth and fume of folly. You are thick 
In falsity, and in disquietude. 
Another rapture rules Antonio's eye. 
Not Helena. 

H^MON : You know it — yet have led 
Her to his arms ? 

Charles : His arms ! Ah, mole to burrow 
Thus under blind and muddy misbelief! 
To mine is she come here. {Terribly.) Were he 

a seraph. 
And did from Paradise desire to fold her — 
No mercy ! — But, I will speak as a child, 
As he who woke with Ruth fair at his feet ; 
Long have I gleaned amid the years and lone. 
She shall glean softly now beside me — softly, 
rill sunset fail in me and I am night. 

H^MON : This is a gin, a net, and I am fast ! 
[92] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : A net to snare what never has been 

free ? 
H.EMON : Still must it be this tenderness lives 

false 
Upon your lips. 

Charles : " Must,*" say you, " must,"" yet 

stand 

H.EMON : Then shall he rest — lie easy down and 

rest 
In treachery ? 

Charles : He ? 

H.EMON : Yes. 

Charles : You mean ? 

H.EMON : Yes ! — yes ! 

Charles : Antonio ? 
H.EMON : Is it not open ? 

Charles {confusedly) : No : 

Glooms start around me, glooms that seethe and 

cling. 

[93] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

H^MON : This maid who called, did she come 
idly here ? 
You stir ? you rouse ? 

Charles : A coldness runs in me. 

H^MON : And have not I come strangely on 
the hour ! 

Chakles : It 'gins to burn ! 

H.EMON : Not entered a strange way ? 

Charles : You pause and ever pause upon my 
patience. 
'Twill heave unbearably ! 

H.EMON : Then hear me, hear ! — 

Senseless against a bank I found a boy, 
Hurled by some ruthless hoof. Near him this key 
And writing 

Charles : Tell it ! 

H^MON : That avows, mid lines 

Clandestine of purport, Antonio 

And Helena, under these shades at twelve 

[94] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles: You bring on me a furious desola- 
tion. 
But Fulvia, ah, she 

H^MON : Not there is trust ! 

She is aware and aids in his deceit. 
This writing says it of her. 

Charles : Fulvia ? No ! 

No, no ! — Though she had sudden whispers for 

him ! 
A lie ! — Yet fast belief fixes its fangs 
On me and will not loose me — for against 
My hope she set a coldness and a doubt ! 
O woman woven through all fibres of me ! 
{Starting up.) But he ! 

H.EMON : Ah then, it runs in you, the rush 
And pang that answer mine ? 

Charles {quietly) : If they are still 

H.EMON : Under these shades ? 

Charles : And — lips to lips 

[95] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

H.EMON : Ah, God ! 

You will ? — ^you will ? 

Charles : Hush ! something — No, it was 

But fate cried out in me, not any voice. 

H.EMON : We must be swift. 

Charles : It cries again. I will 

Not listen ! He''s not flesh of me — not flesh ! 
A traitor is no son, nor was nor shall be ! 
Though it shriek desolation utterly 
I will not listen ! 

H^MON : Do not ! 

Charles : And to-day 

He shook, ashen and clenched, remembering 
The guilty secret in him ! 

H^MON : Still he's free. 

Charles : My words fell warm as tears — " A 
rift has come, 
A rift, a smile, a breath" — men speak so 
when 

[96] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

They creep from madness up into some space 
Whose element is love. 

H.EMON : And will you sink 

To a weak palsy — who should o"'erwhelm 
With penalty ! 

Charles (rousing) : No ! all and ever false 
Was he who^s so when most he should be true ! 
I will make treachery bitter to all time. 
Bring di'ead on all to whom are given sons ! 
Down generations shall they peer and tremble, 
Look on me as on majesties accursed ! — 
Search every shade — search, search ! You stand 

as death. 
I am in famine till he gives me groan ! 

{They go in opposite directions. 

Enter Fut,via, distressed^ and Giulia. 
FuLviA : He was with Hasmon ? 
Giulia : On that seat. 

[97] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : Convulsed, 

Yet passionless ? 

GiULiA : His words were low, 

FuLviA : Why were 

You not asleep? 

GiULiA : I 

FuLviA : Did he beat his hands 

Briefly — and then no more ? 

GiLTLiA : I was behind 



FuLviA : And could not see ? But heard their 
names ? 
The Greek is still without ? 

GiULiA : My lady, yes. 

FuLviA : Your voice is guilty. How came 
Haemon in ? 
Answer me, answer ! No, go quickly ! If 

The duke has entered now and sleeps ! Or if ! 

( Words and swords are heard, then a shriek 
from Helena. Charles rushes infuri- 
[98] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

ous and wounded in the arm, followed 
hy Helena, Antonio, who is dazed, and 
from the Castle side by H.emon, guards, 
etc.) 
Antonio : You, you, sir ? father ? I knew it 
not, so swift 
Your rage fell on me. 

Charles {to a guard) : Gaping, ghastly fool ! 
Do you behold him murderous and lay 
No hand on him ! 

Antonio : But, sir ! 

Charles : Let him not fawn 

About me ! Seize him ! God forgives not Hell. 
Not this blood only but my soul's be on him. 

Helena : O, do not, he 

Charles : Stand ! stand ! Touch me not with 
Your voice or eyes or being ! They are soft 
With perfidy, and stole me to believe 
There's sweetness in a flower, light in air, 
[99] 

L.ofC. 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

And beauty in the innocence of earth. 
Bind him ! Leucadia's just cliff awaits 
All traitors — "'tis the law, they must be flung 
Out on the dizzy and supportless wind. 

FuLviA : But this shall never be ! No, though 
your looks ' 

Heave out with hate upon me. 

Charles (convulsed^ then coldly) : You are 
dead, 
And speak to me. Once you were Fulvia — 
No more ! And once my friend, now but a ghost 
Whom I must gaze upon forgetlessly. 
Obey, at once ! and at to-morrow's sunset ! 
(Antonio is taken and led out.) 
Helena (falling at Charles' Jeet) : You can- 
not, will not — O, he is your son 
And loves you much ! 

Charles : Touch me not ! touch me not ! 

(To H^EMON.) Lead her away — and quickly, 
[100] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

quickly, quickly ! (H.emon goes with 

Helena through the postern. 
Friends — friends — {itnsteadily) I am — quite — 

friendless now — ? (Clutching his wounded 

arm.) Ah — quite! {He faints.) 
FuLviA : Charles ! Charles ! my lord ! return ! 

— A numbness 
Has barred the way of soothing to his breast ! 

CUETAIM 



[101] 



ACT FOUR 

Scene. — A chamber in the Castle, opening on the 
right to a hall, curtained on the left from 
another chamber. In the rear is a window 
through which may be seen silvery hills of 
olive resting under the late afternoon sun : by 
it a shrine. Enter the Captain of the Guard 
and a Soldier yrow the Hall. 

Soldier : There is no more ? 
Captain : Not if you understand. 

Soldier : That do I — every link of it ! I've 
served 
Under the bold de Montreal, and he 
For stratagems — well, Italy knows him ! 
Captain : You must be quick and secret. 
[102] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Soldier : As the end 

Of the world ! 

Captain : Our duty's with the duke. But then 
Antonio has oui' love. 

SoLDiEE : That has he ! Ah, 

That has he ! 

Captain : Well, be close. None must escape, 
Remember, none be hurt. As for the princess. 
We'll hear the chink of ducats with her thanks. 

Soldier : Madonna save her ! — The Judas of 
a father 
Who robs her rest ! 

Captain (looking down the hall) : 'Tis she who 
comes this way. 
So go, and haste. But fail not. 

Soldier : If I do. 

Bury me with a pagan, next a Turk ! 

(Goes. 
Enter Fulvia. 

Captain : Princess — 

[103] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : Our plans grow to fulfilment — ^are 
No way misplanted ? 

Captain : Lady, all seems now 

Seasonable for their expected fruit. 

FuLviA : No accident appears to threat and 
thwart them ? 

Captain : Doubt not a fullest harvest of your 
hope. 
The duke himself shall for this deed at last 
Have benediction. 

FuLviA : May it be ! He's quick, 

Though quicker in forgetting. I will move 
Him as I may. 

Captain : The kind and wise assaults 

Your words shall make must move him, gi'acious 
lady. 

Enter H.emon. 
H^MON : I seek the duke. 
[104] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA (dismissing Captain with a gesture) : 
You would seek penitence 
Were you less far in folly. 

H.EMON (as going) : O — if he's 

Not here, then 

FuLviA : SoiTow too would strain your lips, 
Not cold defiance. 

H.EMON : Pardon : if you know, 

Where is he ? 

FuLviA : Was it easy to overwhelm 

Under the ruin of her dreams a sister ? 

HiEMON : Better beneath her dreams than un- 
der shame. 

FuLviA : Your rashness cloaks itself in that 
excuse. 
Your ruth, and your suspicion that has doomed 
One innocent. 

H^MON : One innocent ! His thought 
Had but betrayal for her ! 
[105] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : 'Tis the Greek 

In you avows it, no true voice. 

H^MON : Then 'tis 

My father murdered whose last moan I hear 
Driven about me in this castle's gray 
Cold spaces. And the dead speak not to lie. 
FuLviA : No, no. You cannot brave your 
action with 
The spur of that belief. 

H.EMON : What want you of me ? 

FuLviA : This : ache and restlessness are on 

you. 
HiEMON {impatiently) : No. 

FuLViA : And doubt begins in you that as a 
wolf 
Will scent the wounded quarry of your conscience. 
H.EMON : After he lured and wooed her under 
night 
And secrecy ? 

[106] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : Not running there will you 
Escape its dread pm'suit. 

HiEMON : He frauded — duped 

His father's trust ! 

FuLviA : Or there ! But one refuge 

Have you against its bitter ceaseless tooth, 
And that above the wilds of self-deceit. 

HjEMOn : Why do you wind so sinuously about 
me ? 
No refuge can be from an hour that's done. 
Shall we invert the glass or tilt the dial 
To bring it back ? 

FuLviA : But if there were ? 

HiEMON : Where is 

The duke — I will not bauble. 

FuLviA : If there were ? 

H^MON : I will no longer listen to the worm. 
You set to feed upon me — torturing ! 
[107] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

The sun melts to an end, and with the night 
Antonio will not be. 

FuLviA : Yet there is time. 

HiEMON : The duke is fixed. 
FuLvi A : No matter : 'gainst the swell 

And power of this peril you must lean. 

H^MON : I ? 

FuLviA : Yes. 

H^MON : You have a plan ? 

FuLviA : One that is sure. 

(Steps are heard.) 
But through those curtains, quick. For more 

seek out 
The Captain of the guard. The duke comes 
hither. 

(H^MON goes through the curtains. 
Charles enters, worn, dishevelled, and followed hy 
Cecco. He sees Fulvia and pauses. 
FuLviA : I come to plead. 
[108] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles {turning away) : Ah ! Nature should 
have pled 
With her your mother, ""gainst conception. 

FuLviA : Your trust is causelessly withdrawn. 
Yet for 
A breath again I beg it — for a moment ! 

Charles : A moment were too much — or not 
enough. 
Is trust a flower of sudden birth we may 
Bid bloom with a command ? 

FuLviA : Ah, that it were, 

Or bloomed as amaranth in those we love. 
Beyond all drought and withering of ill ! 
But hear me ! 

Charles. Leave these words. 

FuLviA : Will you not turn 

Out of this rage ? 

Charles : Leave them, I say, and cease ! 

[109] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Still down the vortex of this destiny 
I would not farther have you drawn. 

FuLviA : Then from 

It draw yourself ! 

Charles : Myself am but a hulk 

Whose treasures have already been engulfed. 

FuLviA : Yet shrink from it ! 

Charles : A son, a friend, a — No, 

She was not mine ! — I will not turn. 

FuLviA : It is 

Your fiiry that distorts us into guilt. 
Although he will not render up his heart, 
But flings you stony and unfilial speech, 
Fearing for her 

Charles : Leave ! 

FuLviA : We 

Charles : Thrice have I said it ! 

FuLviA : Yet must I not until your will is 
wasted. 

[ 110 ] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Chaeles (angrily) : Ah ! 

(FuLviA sighs then goes slowly.) 
Charles . Cecco ! 

Cecco : My lord ? 

Charles : The hour ? 

Cecco {going to window) : It leans to sunset. 
Charles : The sky — the sky ? 
Cecco : A murk moves slowly up. 

Charles {wearily) : There should be storm — 
gloating of wind and grind 
Of hopeless thunders. Lightnings should laugh 

out 
As tongues of fiends. There should be storm. 
{His head sinks on his breast.) 

{Suddenly.) Yet ! — ^yet ! 

Cecco : My lord ? 

Charles : The glow and glory of her seem 

Dead in me ! 

Cecco : Of— the Greek .? 

[Ill] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : And yearning has 

Grown impotent — as 'twere a momenfs folly, 
A left and quickly quenched desire of youth 
Kindled in me ! — To youth alone love's sudden. 
Cecco : Sir, dare I speak ? 
Charles : Speak. 

Cecco : When Antonio 

Charles : Cease : but a whisper of his name 
and I 
Am frenzy — frenzy — though the stillness burns 
And bursts with it ! 

(Cecco steps hack. A pause. ^ 
Charles : The sun, how hangs it now ? 

Cecco {going to window) : Above the bloody 
waving of the sea, 
Eager to dip. 

Charles (staggering up) : Ah, I was in a 

foam 

Bitten by hounds of fury and despair ! 
[112] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Did you not, Fulvia, pleading for them say 
They quailed but would not flee and leave me waste? 

Cecco : She is not here, my liege. 

Charles : Antonio ! 

Ah, boy ! thou ever wast to me as wafts 
Of light, of song, of summer on the hills ! 
Soft now I feel thy baby arms about me, 
And all the burgeon of thy youth, ere proud 
And cruel years grew in me, comes again 
On wings and stealing winds of memory ! 

Cecco : O, then, sir 

Charles : Yes. Fly, ily ! and stay the guard ! 
He must not — Ah ! — down fearful fathoms, down 
Into the roar ! 

(Cecco starts. He stops Mm.) 

Yet he has flung me from 
Immeasiu"able peaks, and I have sunk 
Forevermore beneath hope's horizon. 
Who falls so close the grave can rise no more, 
[113] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Cecco : This your despair would wound him 
more than death. 
Forget the girl. 

Charles : She ? Ah, my sullen, wild. 

And gloomy pulse beat with a rightful scorn 
Against the hours that sieged it. Stony was 
Its solitude and fierce, bastioned against 
All danger of quick blisses — till, with fury 
For that mute tenderness which women's love 
Lays on the desolation of the world, 
She ravished it ! — Yet now 'tis still and cold. 

Cecco : But 'twas unknowingly. 

Chaeles : A woman's smile 

Never was luring, never, but she knew it. 
As hawk the cruel rapture of his wings. 

Cecco : She though is young, and youth 

Charles : Must pay with moan 

The shriving ! — Ah, the sun — the sun — where 
burns it ? 

[114] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Cecco : Upon a cloud whence it must spring 
to night. 

Charles : So low ? 

Cecco : Sir, yes. 

Charles : Ah, 'tis ? so low ? 

Cecco : Red now 

It rushes forth. 

Charles : A breathing of the world. 
And then ! — Antonio ! 

Cecco : Again a cloud 

Withholds. 

Charles : Antonio ! 

Cecco : It dips, my lord. 

Charles {frenzied) : O, will great Christ upon 
it lay no fear ! 
Let it swoon down as if its sinking sent 
No signal unto Death — and plunge, plunge thee, 
Antonio, forever from the day ! 
Has He no miracle will seize it yet ! 
[115] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Nor will lend now His thunder to cry hold, 
His lightning to flame off the hands that grasp, 
Bidden to hurl thee o'er ! 

Cecco : 'Tis sunk ! 

Charles {rushing to window) : Yes ! — Yes ! 
{Starting back horrified.) The vision of 
it ! Ah, — see you not, see ! 
They lift him, swing him — Now ! down, down, 

down, down ! 
The rocks ! the lash ! the foam ! 

{Sinks exhausted in his chair. Cecco pours 
out wine.) 

Enter hurriedly, a Soldier. 
Soldier : Great lord ! 

Cecco : What now ! 

It is ill-timed ! 

Soldier : Great lord, there''s mutiny ! 
Cecco : And where ? 

Soldier : Hear me, great sir, there's mutiny t 
[116] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Cecco : The town ? the town ? 

Charles {rousing') : Ay ? 

Soldier : Mutiny ! your haste ! 

Charles : O, mutiny. 

Soldier : Sir, yes ! 

Charles : And do the ranks 

Of hell roar up at me ? — It is not strange. 

Soldier {confused): The ranks of — pardon, 
lord. 

Charles : Do the skies rage ? 

They were else dead to madness. 

Soldier : Sir, it is 

Your guard beyond the gates. 

Charles : 'Tis every throat 

Of earth and realm unearthly has a cry 
Against me and against ! 

Soldier : No, but a few 

Charles : You doubt it ? — Are my eyes not 
bloody ? Say ! 

[117] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Soldier : Sir ! sir ! 

Charles : My lips then are not pale with murder 
Bitterly done ? 

Soldier : Pale — no. 

Charles : Yet have I killed ; 

Spoke death with them — not reasonless — yet 

death. 
And all the lost have echoes of it : hear 
You not a spirit clamor on the air ? 
Ploughing as storms of pain it passes through 

me. 
Mutiny ? Go. I could call chaos fair, 
And fawn on infinite ruin — fawn and praise. 

(Soldier goes. 
Yet will not yield ! {To Cecco.) My robes and 
coronet ! 

(Cecco goes to obey. 
ril sit in them and mock at gi'eatness that 
A passion may unthrone. If we weep not 
[118] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Calamity will leave to torture us, 

And fate for want of tears will thirst to death ! 

Enter Cardinal. 
Ah, priestly sir. 

Cardinal : Infuriate man ! 
Charles : Speak so. 

I lust for bitterness. 

Cardinal : What have you done ! 

Charles {shuddering; then smiling) : Watched 
the sun set. Did it not, think you, bleed 
Unwontedly along the waves? 

Cardinal : O horror ! 

Horrible when a father slays and smiles ! 

Charles : Not so, lord Cardinal, not so ! — but 
when 
He slays and smileth not. 

Cardinal : Beyond all mercy ! 

Charles : Therefore I smile. Men should not 
mid the trite 

[119] 



CHARLES DI TO CCA 

Enchanting and vain trickery of earth 
Till they no longer hope of it, or want. 
Smiles should be kept for life's unbearable. 

Cardinal : Murderer ! 

Charles : Ah ! 

Cardinal : Heretic ! 

Charles : Well. 

(Goes to shrine and casts it out the window.) 

Cardinal : Fool ! fool ! 

Charles : There are no wise men, O lord Car- 
dinal. 
Cardinal : Heaven let Antonio's death under 
the sea 
Make every wave a tongue against your rest, 
And 'gainst the rock of this impenitence ! 

(Charles listeyis as to something afar off.) 

No wind should blow that has not sting of it. 
No light stream that it stains not ! 
[120] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles (sighing) : You have loosed 

Your robe, lord prelate — see. 

Cardinal : O stone ! thou stone ! 

Charles : Have peace. A keener cry comes 
up to me 
Than frenzy can invoke : a vaster pain 
Than justice from Omnipotence may call. 

Cardinal : My lips shall learn it. 

Charles : " Father " moans it. " Father ! " 

It is my ears' inheritance forever. 
Enter Fulvia 

FuLviA : Lord Cardinal, one of your servants 
has 
In quarrel been struck, and mortally 'tis feared. 
Quickly to him : then I may plead of you 
Escort to Rome. 

Cardinal : I do not understand. 

Fulvia : But shall. 

Cardinal : To Rome ? 

[m] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : Do not pause here to learn 

With the dear minutes of a dying man. 

(Cardinal goes. 

Charles : You baffle and bewilder. 

FuLviA : Well. 

Charles : You — ? — Yes ! 

I am beat off by it. 

FuLviA : Ten years of shelter 

Have you held over me. 

Charles : Ten years 

FuLviA : Whose days, 

Whose every moment else had borne a torture. 

Charles : Now ? 

FuLviA : I, perhaps, must go. 

Charles : Must ? — Still I grope. 

FuLviA : Must go ! Though in this castle's 
aged calm 
And melancholy dusk no shadow is 
Or niche but may remember prayer for thee. 
[ 122] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : To Rome ? You must ? — I am un- 

der a spell. 
FuLviA . We, thou and I, after the battle's foam 
Or chase's tired return, often have breathed 
The passionate deep hom-s away in rest 
And sympathy. 

Charles : Say on. Your voice — I marvel 

FuLviA : And at the dawn have looked and 
sighed, then slow 
With quiet clasp of fingers turned apart. 

Charles : You go ? — But, on ! — your tone — 

in it I feel 

FuLviA : Have we not fast been friends ? 
Charles : What hath your voice ? 

FuLviA : Such friends have we not been as 
glow up from 
Eternity ? 

Charles : You say it, and I wake. 

FuLviA : Such friends — till yesterday you 

[123] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Ah ! 

FuLviA : Changed sudden as the sea when com- 

eth storm, 
Charles : I had forgot — forgot ! — the sun ! — 
the sea! 
The sea! — Antonio! — The diff — the surf! 
The shroud and funeral fury of the waves ! 
FuLviA : Be calm. 

Charles {rising excitedly) : I'll stay it ! Cecco, 
our fleetest foot ! 
A rain of ducats if he shall outspeed 
This doom on us. More ! more ! a flood of 
them, 

If he 

FuLviA (drawing him to his chair) : Be patient 

— calm. 
Charles : I — I — remember, 

'Tis night ! 

Fulvia : Yes, night. 

[124] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : The sun''s no more ! It hath 

Gone down beyond all mercy and recaU. 

FuLviA : Beyond ? — Ah ! 

Charles {quickly) : Fulvia ? 

FuLviA : 'Tis hard to think ! 

Charles : You utter and he seemeth still of life. 

FuLviA : He was a child in mimic mail clad out 
When first this threshold poured its welcome to 
me. 

Charles : Softly you muse it, and call to your 
eyes 
No quailing nor a flame of execration ! 
You do not burst out on me .'* from me do 
Not shrink as from an executioner ? 

Fulvia : I am a woman who in tears came to 
Your strength, in tears depart. 

Charles : And will not judge ? 

But fear me — fear, and flee ? — You shall not go ! 

Fulvia : Perhaps 

[125] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Chaeles : Again " perhaps " — this calm " per- 
haps ! " 

To Rome ? — I say you shall not. 

FuLviA : Yet should he, 
Antonio, from those curtains come 

Chaeles : Should — should ? 

You speak not reasonably. Why do you say 
" If he should come ? " 

FuLviA : Because 

Charles : YouVe touched 

And led me trembling from reality ! 
Those curtains ? — those ? — just those? — You shall 
not go. 

FuLviA : I will not then. 

Charles : But something breaks from you, 

And as an air of resurrection stirs. 
Speak ; on your words I wait unutterably. 

Fulvia : Did not a soldier lately come, my lord, 

Breathless with eager speech of mutiny ? 

[ 126 ] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : Well — well ? 

FuLviA : Within your guard ? 

Charles : My guard ? No — yes 

What do I see yet cannot in your words ? 

FuLviA : The mutiny was roused at my com- 
mand. 

Charles : Say it — say all ! 

FuLviA : To save you the mad blot 

Of a son"*s blood. 

Charles : Antonio .'' 

FuLviA : Lives ! 

Charles : Low — low 

Joy come too furious has piercing peril. 

He lives ? — You have done this .'' With these soft 

hands, 
These little hands, held off the shears of Fate ? 
Have dared .'' and have not feared ? 

FuLviA : Your danger was 

My fear — that, and no more. 
[127] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Charles : He lives? — I have 

No worth, no gratitude, no gift that may 
Answer this deed — no glow, no eloquence 
But would ring poor in rarest words of earth. 
He lives? — Years yet are mine. Too brief they'll be 
To muse with love of this ! 

FuLviA : No, no, my lord. 

Charles : But where is he ? Belief, tho"" risen, 
strains 
In me as if "'twere fast in cerements 
That seeing must unbind. 

FuLviA : Turn then, and see. 

(Antonio steps from the curtains.) 
Charles : Antonio ! — boy 1 boy ! 
Antonio : My father! {They embrace.) 

Re-enter Cardinal. 
Cardinal : Princess, 

If your decision and desire are still 

{Sees Antonio.) 

r 128 ] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : Your eyes look upon flesh, lord Car- 
dinal. 

(A cry is heard, (hen weeping.) 
Antonio (startled) : Whose pain is this ? — 

strangely it hui'ts me — strangely ! 
Enter Cecco hastily, bearing' robe and coronet. 
Cecco : My lord, the lady Helen's little 

maid 

(Sees Antonio. Shrinks from him.) 
Antonio : What of her ? Are you horrified to 
stone ! 
Her maid ? — There are than risen dead worse 

things 
And worse to dread ! — her maid ? 

Cecco : Sir 

Antonio : Forth with it 1 

She direness of her mistress brings ? some tale 
That earth elsewhere abyssless gaped her up ? 
That butterfly or bud turn asp to bite her ? 
[129] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Cecco : Sir — she — the maid craves audience 
with the duke. 

Antonio : Fetch her, and quickly. 

(Cecco goes. 

FuLviA : Reason, Antonio. 

She will but whimper, tell what overmuch 
Of grief her mistress makes for you : of tears 
Your sunny coming will dry in her. 

Antonio {putting her aside) : These 

Hours come not of any good, but are 
Infected with resolved adversity. 
This dread ! 

FuLviA : They ever dread who have but quit 
The shadow of some doom and the dismay. 
Re-enter Cecco, with Paula weeping. 

Antonio : Girl ! girl ! Thy mistress ? 

Paula {shrinking) : O ! 

Antonio : I am no ghost. 

Thy mistress ? 

[130] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Paula : Mary, Mother ! {Sinks praying.) 

Antonio (lifting her up) : Look on me. See ! 
I have not been down in the gi*ave, nor ev''n 
A moment beyond earth. Do you not hear ! 

Paula {looking at him) : Sir ! 

Antonio : Tell me. 

Paula {hysterically) : Go to her, 

O, go to her. 

Antonio : But, child ? 



Paula : She, O ! — go seek her, O, she is 

Antonio : Where, Paula ? 

Paula : Blind all day she moaned and wept. 

Antonio : My Helena ! 

Paula : And when the sun was gone, 

Came quiet, kissed me — O, go seek her, sir! 

Antonio : Kissed you ? 

Paula : Then to me gave these jewels. O ! 
And darkly cloaked stole out into the night. 

Charles : Alone ? 

[131] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio : Whither, quick, whither ? 

Paula : Ah, I do 

Not know : but she 

Antonio : Pray, pray, tell out your dread. 

Paula : Last night she said, " My heart is in 
my lord 
Antonio^s to beat or cease with it."" 
I learned her words — they seemed so pretty. 

Charles {gasping) : Ah ! 

Antonio : Why do you gasp ? — Paula 

Charles : If she — the cliff! 

Antonio: The chff! The—? 

{Staggers dizzily, then rushes out. 

Charles : Let one go with him — bring 

Us what hath passed — hath passed. 

{A Soldier goes. 

Paula {with uncontrollable terror) : My lady ! 

Charles : Child, 

I cannot bear thy voice upon my heart! 
[132] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

It hath a tone — a clutch — no more, no more ! 
I cannot bear it ! We must wait. No hap 
Has been — no hap, I think — surely no hap. 

Enter Bardas deprecatingly, followed hy Antonio. 

Bard AS : Antonio ! not in the sea? You live? 

Antonio : I say, where is she? 

Bardas : You are mortal ? 

Antonio {groaning zvith impatience) : O 

This utter superstition ! (Pricking his arm.) Is 
it not blood ? 

Bardas: You live ! and live? but let her think 
your death ! 
You let her ! still devising for yourself 
Safety and preservation ! 

Antonio : She's not safe ? 

Bardas : O, safe — if she had shrift ! 

Charles {hoarsely) : The dead are so ! 

Bardas : Ay, so. 

[133] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Antonio : And none above the grave ? — no 
answer ? 

Baedas : She came unto the cliff amid her 
tears — 
Her being all into one want was fused, 
You down the wave to follow. 

Antonio : But you grasped ? 

You held her ? 

Bardas : Yes 

Antonio : Then — well ? 

Bardas : She had a phial. 

Antonio : God ! God ! 

Bardas : Out of her breast she drew it swift, 
And instant of it drank. 

Antonio : Drank ? and she fell ? 

No ? — no ? — Ah but you dashed it from her lips ? 
She did but taste ? 

Bardas : Only : and then 

Antonio : More ? more ? 

[134] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Bardas : "Is 't not enough," she pled to me, 
" Enough 
That I must wander the cold way of death 
Unto his arms ? Go hence ! There is no rest. 
I will go down and clasp him, drift with him 
To some unhabited gray ocean vale 
God hath forgot. There will we dwell away 
From destiny and weeping, from despair ! " 

Charles : You left her ? 

Bardas : As I held her piteous hand 
Came revellers who saw us — jested her 
Of taking a new love. She broke my grasp 

Antonio : And leapt .'' — down the wide air ? 

Bardas : Swifter than all 

Prevention. 

Antonio : Helena ! O Helena \ 

That all thy loveliness should fare to this. 
Thy glory go in dark calamity ! 
[135] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Bardas : I saw her as she leapt and until death 
Shall see no more. 

Antonio {drawing) : Blot it fi-om you ! Her 
face, 
Her sorrow and her fairness shall not stand 
Imprisoned in your eye, tho' 'twere to cry 
Relentlessly your crime. — But no — but no ! 

{Sheathing his sword, he pauses, then stag- 
gers suddenly/ out.) 
Paula : Let me go to my lady ! 
Charles : Still her ! She 

Forever hath a fluttering, a cry, 
Undurably. It presses the lone air 
With sensitive and aching agony. 

Paula {xvitlessly, in tears) : I know thy song, 
my lady, I know, I know ! 
'Twas pretty and 'twas strange, but now I know. 
(Sings.) Sappho ! Sappho ! 
In maiden woe 

[136] 



CHARLES Dl TOCCA 

(Let alone love, it spurns and burns !) 
Wept — wept, and leapt — • 
O love is so ! 
(Let alone love, it burns !) 
My lady ! O my lady ! my sweet lady ! 
{She is led out.) 
FuLviA : This is most sad — most sad, and pitiful. 
Charles : I cannot bear her voice upon my heart. 
Enter Agabus gazing into the air. 
Again this monk ? this dog of death ? — and now ? 
Agabus : My trusty Shadow. {Laughs madly.) 
Ha, he has been here ! 
My king o' the worms and all coiTuption ! — 
{Approaching Charles.) Lovers, and lovers 1 

O she leapt as 'twere 
To Christ and not sin's Pit ! And he is gone 
To follow her ! The devil's nine wits are 
Too many ! 

{Wanders about.) 

[137] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

FuLviA : My lord ! Your limbs are frozen, 
And bloodlessly you stand ! Move, rouse, O 

breathe ! 
It is not truth but madness that he speaks. 

(A cry and clanking of armor are heard 
in the Hall. A Soldier bursts into the 
chamber.) 
Soldier : O duke ! O duke ! (SinJcs to his Tcnee.) 
Charles {gazes at him, struggling to speak) '. 
Rise — go — and, if thou canst — 
To pray. 

Soldier : O, sir ! 

Charles : You have no tidings. 
Soldier : Sir 



Charles (desperately) : None, fool ! but come 
to say what silence gi'oans. 
What earth numb and in deadness raves to me. 
To tell Antonio hath gone out and o'er 
A precipice hath stepped for sake of love. 
[138] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

This is not tidings — hath it not on me 

Been fixed forever ? It is older than 

Despair, as old as pain! {To H.emon, who has 

entered.) Your sister 

Bardas : Haemon ! 

Cardinal : Hold him not in this anguish. 
FuLviA : She and our 

Antonio have left us to our tears. 
(H.EMON stands motionless.) 
Charles : Let no one groan. I say let no one 
groan — 
Fury on him that groans ! {He blindly rocks to 
and fro.) 
FuLviA : My lord ! 

Charles {taking her hand) : Well — come. 

{As in a trance.) 
There's much to do. We will think of the dead. 
Perchance 'twill keep them near us : speak to them, 
And they may answer while we wait, may float 
[139] 



CHARLES DI TOCCA 

Dim words on moonbeams to us. O for one 
That shall sound of forgiveness and of rest ! 
{More wildly.) 

O I have started on the mountain's brow 
A tremor that has loosed the avalanche ; 
And penitence too late — too late — too late — 
Was powerless as flowers along its path ! 

{He sinks back into his chair and stares 
hopelessly before him.) 

Curtain. 



[140] 



APi 15 1903 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 909 922 2 



